PART 7: MY TRIP TO NAIROBI

THESE SERIES RE-POSED DUE PUBLIC INTERESTS

BY ADOW JUBAT

My village mate, who received me in Nairobi, took me to then Al-Rahma lodge in the 12th street, whose place is now taken over by a new towering and magnificent building - Diamond plaza.

As I was climbing upstairs on the three storey lodge toward my room with my new guide and the lodge attendant, we were confronted on the stairs by five ladies dressed in a piece of “clothes”. I say a piece of cloth because, what the mature ladies in their harvestable age were wearing as clothes were exposing more than it conceal of their human autonomy.

The ladies had also luscious lips with red substance akin to a fresh human blood selectively looked at me despite been in a company of two other people. With my mind fill with orgy stories about the city girls by my village people, the sight of ladies in that state made me took a U-turn in a bid to bolted out of the lodge scared dead.

Understandably, I mistook them as man eaters who just devoured onto a human being upstairs and were running away before their action was uncovered by other people in the lodge.

The watchman at the exit door, who sensed the detectable village behaves in me, restrained me from escaping into the unfamiliar town and got lost. In fact, he was advised by Kathiyow (my guide in the town) to keep an eagle eyes on me.

"What is the problem with you", the guard inquired. “You ask me what is wrong with me when you have just allowed cannibals into the lodge. From the looks of their lips, they must have eaten several customers”, I shouted as I struggled to disengage myself from his strong hands.

“Those ladies are our dedicated customers. What you saw in their lips is not a human blood. It is just lipsticks. Ladies here uses different lipsticks to make them attractive to men” he said laughing loudly at my awkwardness.

“So you mean, there is a sane man, who fall in love with a woman with a bloody lips? I asked astonished with his illegitimate explanation of a serious scaring issue. 

As if to scare me even more, another group of ladies sauntered into the lodge. The ladies had blue eyelashes. At first sight I thought, if they placed butterflies on their eyes.

With assurance from the watchman that I was safe sharing the lodge with ghost looking ladies, I went back to my room alone as my guide has excused himself to go to the 9th street for a Miraa chewing session. 

At nightfall, I pressed my hands into the springy softness of the mattress. Then, I examined the layers of cloth on top of it, unsure whether to sleep on them or to remove them and put them away before sleeping.

Finally, I climbed up and lay on top of the layers of cloth, my body curled in a tight knot due to the city’s night breeze. I also look around signs of a pit latrine in the adjacent rooms and I couldn’t find any. This made me to hold onto my natural calls both short and long as, I wait my guide to come back from chewing spree and guide me into the bushes nearby to help myself.

I didn’t take shower either. I looked all round my lodge room for a basin and a sign of bathroom - a soggy place with pieces of used soaps - but everywhere in the room including small portion within, were too clean to believe it can be spoiled with bathing.

PART 8 COMING UP SOON INSHA’ ALLAH